Smiles Article ---- Promising !!!!!!!April 17, 2008
Gold Summit Aims For A Right And A Left In Nevada And The Carolinas
By Charles Wyatt
Investors seeking a gold explorer focussed on the USA and therefore totally geared to the US dollar in terms of costs and revenue, provided it gets that far, need look no further than Canadian-listed Gold Summit. Its projects are focussed on Nevada and the Carolinas, both of which are highly prospective for gold. Everyone has heard of the Carlin Trend and the Comstock Lode in Nevada, but there tends to be a bit of scratching of heads when the Carolinas are mentioned. In fact the Carolina Slate Belts are where gold was first discovered in the US - there was a gold rush there in the early 1800s. Gold Summit’s chief executive Tony Taylor, who runs the company out of an office in Reno, knows a lot about the highly metamorphosed geology there, as he was involved in the team from Selection Trust/BP Minerals which discovered and developed the Ridgeway Mine in South Carolina. That mine ended up producing around 1.6 million ounces of gold from an open pit between 1988 and 1999.
Even over a telephone line one can imagine the wry smile on his face as he describes the change in management philosophy that took place when Selection Trust was taken over by BP Minerals in the early stages of the operation. “We had just carried out a pre-feasibility study which came up with an internal rate of return of 80 per cent on the prevailing gold price, which would be good enough for most people. The oilmen, however, wanted to limit risk so they sold a 50 per cent interest to Robert Friedland for US$5 million. He also had to fund the definitive feasibility study and this probably cost him another US$8.5 million. Anyway RTZ, in the shape of Kennecott, took over BP Minerals after the mine was well into production - in fact it was in the latter stages of its life – and paid him US$17 million for his share of the mine. Add that to the money he had already made from production and he was bankrolled for Voiseys Bay. In fact you could probably say that the Ridgeway mine was the real start of Friedland’s career.”
Fast forward to 2008 and the present state of play is that Gold Summit has sizeable property holdings in both North and South Carolina in areas where the management knows of a number of untested high grade gold occurrences. A group of very experienced consultants with past ties to Gold Summit’s management at Ridgeway has helped to acquire leases and carry out exploration. What they are looking for are high grade gold-silver deposits that could eventually be mined by underground methods. Clearly a lot was learned from Ridgeway, as underground mining leaves a much smaller footprint than open pit in these days of environmental scrutiny and need not be more expensive. To maximize chances of exploration success, acquisition of whole districts with multiple targets is preferred. Within those districts, high quality geological mapping, rock and soil sampling as well as evaluation of work by previous explorers defines drilling targets.
There’s always been pressure on the funds available to Tony Taylor for exploration, so a number of joint ventures have been negotiated. The deal with Astral Mining is a case in point. Astral can acquire a 51 per cent interest in the Saluda Area of South Carolina or the Bear Creek Area in North Carolina after spending US$300,000 on exploration. This holding can be topped up to 70 per cent in a designated prospect by completing a feasibility study, and to 80 per cent if Astral brings a mine into production. The partners started drilling on the Saluda prospect earlier this year following some fascinating high grade intercepts last summer. In North Carolina they are testing a Ridgeway-style target developed from soil and rock chip sampling on altered volcanic rocks. So far three holes have been drilled at Bear Creek and the rig has now moved south and is getting a similar programme underway at Saluda. No assays are yet available, but examination of core has been encouraging.
Meanwhile, in Nevada, Tony Taylor claims Monte as the company’s most advanced project. From an exploration point of view it is, as a small resource has already been defined, but he clearly retains a very soft spot for the Carolina Slate Belt. His company, however, can rely on plenty of experience in Nevada, as Larry Kornze and Ruth Callaher, both directors, were involved with Barrick in the Goldstrike area, where Larry was responsible for the discovery of several deposits. Gold Summit’s properties in Nevada cover four tertiary epithermal vein districts, three of which lie in the prolific Walker Lane. All these have drill ready targets defined by surface work, most with bonanza grades in outcrops or discovery drill holes. The San Franciso project has recently been joint-ventured with New Dimension, owner of the adjoining Reese River project, where it has had considerable exploration success and generated an attractive target that extends onto the San Franciso claim.
Back with Monte Cristo, earlier this year Gold Summit also agreed a joint venture with New Bethlehem Mining, under the terms of which New Bethlehem will earn a 50 per cent interest in Monte Cristo by spending US$3 million on exploration. A programme of drilling, extension of soil and biogeochemical grids, and mapping and rock sampling of some newly defined targets for 2008 has already commenced, with core drilling now underway north of the McLean Lode. The target there is a coincident biogeochemical and resistivity anomaly that may turn out to be a significant extension of the McLean resource, already estimated at 331,000 tonnes averaging 6.5 grammes per tonne gold.
Tony Taylor now expects to be releasing a series of drill results from both Nevada and the Carolinas and he confidently expects that these will attract the attention of investors. He goes as far as to suggest that his company may have found a new Comstock Lode. Since the Comstock Lode was the first major US deposit of silver and gold, discovered in 1859 under what is now Virginia City, he’s not exactly pitching expectations low. Certainly the McLean Lode is the same sort of size and shape as several of the original Comstock Lodes and the geology has striking similarities, but Dr Drill will have the final say.
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